Contact a Home Care Expert

HOME CARE BLOG

The 7 Biggest Obstacles to Finding Reliable Senior Home Care

Posted on September 18, 2018 with 0 comments

As America’s population continues to age, a greater portion of the population will require senior home care services in order to enjoy satisfying lives into their 70s, 80s, and 90s. Unfortunately, most people run into obstacles when they start their search for reliable senior home care service providers. As you compare companies, keep an eye out for providers that are able to help you overcome the following seven issues.

Availability

A lot of caregivers have restricted hours that may not match your needs. If you need someone to watch your mother while you work late, you’ll need an agency that can provide care during those hours.

123 Home Care eliminates this obstacle by providing services 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. We’re even available during holidays.

Schedule Reliability and Flexibility

Just like everyone else, caregivers have personal lives outside of work. Sometimes circumstances arise that can prevent them from attending to their regular schedule. If a caregiver gets sick, for instance, he or she may not be able to work.

Independent contractors and small agencies don’t always have backup caregivers to accommodate sudden schedule changes. Choosing a provider with a large staff makes it easy for someone to fill in if needed.

Hourly Minimum Commitments

Most agencies require minimum hourly commitments from their clients. Some of the companies may even require you to pay for a certain number of hours even though you only need a couple hours of services.

123 Home Care doesn’t have minimum hourly commitments, so you don’t have to worry about meeting any hourly minimums. Our caregivers are happy to come over to perform small tasks like preparing meals and driving your loved one to the doctor.

Personal Compatability

It’s important to find a caregiver who gets along well with your loved one. An incompatible caregiver could amount to an uncomfortable circumstance for your loved one. However, if the caregiver is personally compatible with your loved one then their quality of life can improve dramatically. You don’t want to hire someone who doesn’t have the right personality.

Unfortunately, you may not discover personality clashes for several months after hiring an independent contractor or signing up with an agency. When that happens, you may have to start the search for a new caregiver all over again.

123 Home Care has a “comfort match guarantee” to avoid this problem. If the caregiver we choose isn’t right for the personality fit, then we’ll find another caregiver who is. In fact, you get to try as many caregivers as it takes to find the perfect match.

Financial Liability

People who hire independent contractors don’t always realize that they’re exposing themselves to great financial risk. Some independent contractors aren’t covered with professional liability insurance. This means that in the event that something goes wrong, then you may be liable to cover the damages from your own pocket.

By choosing a full-service employer agency like 123 Home Care you can rest assured that the companies general liability insurance policy covers most accidents and other issues.

Employee Taxes

Hiring an independent contractor could also make you personally responsible for paying that person’s payroll taxes. It doesn’t take long before the payroll taxes become prohibitively expensive for your family.

At 123 Home Care, our staff members are our employees, so we handle all of the associated taxes.

Background Checks

You definitely don’t want to trust your loved one’s care to a stranger with a murky past. If you’re planning on hiring an independent contractor you would have to conduct your own background checks in order to uncover any potential issues. If you’re looking for care through an agency, be sure to ask what their screening process is.

123 Home Care performs background checks to make sure we only hire safe & reliable caregivers. As a part of our industry-leading 25 point screening process we conduct state and federal level criminal history checks, DMV record checks, sex offender and general fraud checks.

Choosing the right senior home care can dramatically improve the quality of life of you and your loved one. By looking out of for the seven issues listed above you’ll be able to save yourself the time, money and effort of making an uninformed decision when looking for a caregiver.